Point of no Return
by ghostbuster03
Summary: After 28 years of life I died and I was reborn. As an average person, nothing special, into an average family, that was nothing special. Well, nothing special where I was reborn at anyway. Struggling to cope with my loss and of course trying to survive, while trying to make the right decisions. Self-Insert/OC; rating might go up later
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note**

Hey there. So I'm finally putting something up and I'm actually really nervous about this. For several reasons: first of all, I'm still not at all sure were the story is supposed to go, I have a few ideas and a general plot line, but no ending and there are some points in the story were it a change of direction is possible. Also, I have an alternate version of the very same story with very few changes, at a later point I might be uploading that one too. Just to compare.

As for this one, if you took a look at my profile, you know that I haven't been writing anything creative for a little over six years now. So this is more a thing to find my writing style again. Which doesn't mean I put any less work in it! And I'm encouraging you to critique me. Tell me what you like, what you absolutely hate, my mistakes, but please be also kind enough to give me suggestions as to how to improve.

About the title: I thought for a while about this and about the concept I had for the story. There are two meanings to it. One is a rather personal for me, since uploading this means for me that there is no backing out. I always finish my stories. The second and more important is for the story itself, since the main character will be put in several situations, where she will have to make decisions which can't be undone afterwards and situations where she will be forced into a direction.

But enough of that, please enjoy :)

**Prologue**

**.**

**.**

**.**

I was 28 when I died.  
I was 28 and at a point in my life where my whole future lay in front of me.  
Not a good time.

I had finished university just the year before.  
And I finally, after a year of living of my savings and being on a fellowship, finally got hired.  
Finally moved out of my tiny one room apartment, where I had lived for the past 8 years.  
Finally moving forward, working in a field I liked, having friends I actually truly liked.  
Finally feeling like myself and then: Boom.

And it was all over.

I had trouble comprehending it at first.  
Standing next to my body in the hospital should have been a clue.  
But all I could do is watch.  
At that point I wasn't dead per say, my heart was still beating, and I was hooked to a machine that kept me breathing.  
Brain dead.  
But not physically dead.

I kept watching, when my parents came in. My siblings. My cute little nice and my nephew.

Usually always having big smiles on their faces when they saw me but now looking so unsure.  
I watched as my dad talked with the doctor saw the emotions he desperately tried to contain.  
Not wanting to lose his strength in front of the kids, in front of my younger siblings, my mom.  
And I heard my nephew asked my sister when I would wake up to play with them, like I promised.  
And I watched my sister starting to cry hugging him and his sister tight to the chest, before her husband took them out of the room.  
I listened to them my siblings' one after another saying goodbye, quietly, sometimes not finding the right words, tears on their faces.  
And I was desperately clinging to the thought, that I was just having a bad dream.  
They had all left, and only my mom and dad stood there, looking at me.

Broken me, hooked up to machines that kept me alive.

My dad lying and arm around my mom, whose hands were shaking as she softly hold mine. My dad nodding to the doctor who turned the machines off.  
And I kept thinking: just a dream, just a dream, just a dream.

I watched them sitting there for hours, as the beeping got slower, and I watched my mom break down, when the beeping became one long line, and the doctor turned it off.  
And I just stood there looking at my body, my dead body, looking at my parents, and thinking: just a dream, just a dream, just a dream.  
And I hated myself.  
So much.  
Reflexively I tried to hug them, I tried telling them, I'm here, I'm okay.  
But I wouldn't move, and they wouldn't hear.

It was... a shock.

I followed them around for a while.  
I kept screaming at them, trying to touch them, but I couldn't reach them.  
I just couldn't reach them.  
So I gave it up. I just watched them grieving.  
My father keeping his strong face for my mother, for my siblings'.  
I floated around my family.  
I watched my two younger brothers, both with their girlfriends, sitting together, sharing a bottle of whiskey, and silently talking, crying.I watched my older brother, calling in sick at work and just sitting there staring at the wall.  
I watched my little brother, 13 years old and my little sister 16 years old, crawl into my mom's bed, crying.  
I watched my dad, silently leaving the room. I watched him, the strong, proud man; break down, a shattered look in his eyes, no longer able to keep up a strong face.

I watched my older sister, dried tears on her face, sitting with my niece and nephew on the sofa, trying to explain, that auntie Lina won't come to play with them anymore.  
I watched the kids looking at her disbelievingly and heard them asking why.  
I heard them asking If they did something wrong, if I didn't like them anymore and if it was their fault.  
I heard them beg, to see me, saying that if they could just talked to me that it would be alright.  
And I watched my sister break into tears again, just shaking her head, unable to talk.

That was where I broke down.  
And I wished. I wished so hard, that I would just be alive again.  
I wished so hard to just wake up and be alive again.  
I closed my eyes, pressed them together and wished.  
I couldn't take it.

Everything around me pressed together. I felt like I was being crushed. I felt like I was suffocating.  
I couldn't open my eyes anymore, I felt like I was going away, but I didn't want to let go.  
I couldn't let go, I needed to watch over them!  
I tried to scream, to open my eyes; I tried to hold on to them. Those people, my family. The ones that loved me so much, that gave me so much.  
The ones I loved so much.

And then, I took a deep breath, felt cold air on my skin.  
I screamed.

And a long wail left my throat.

**.**

**.**

**.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note**: Finally done. I admit to not being really happy with this chapter. It took several attempts until I wrote one I found kind of okay. I think I might need a Beta.  
So again, always glad to hear your opinions, positive or negative, it helps me.

**Chapter 1**

If you die you're completely happy and your soul somewhere lives on. I'm not afraid of dying. Total peace after death, becoming someone else is the best hope I've got.

-Kurt Cobain

.

.

.

You'd think that one would be glad, relieved to be reborn.  
To have all the fear of the unknown taken away and be allowed another chance.  
To do it all over again, but with much more certainty than you had previous.  
You already know who you are, you already know what your dreams, believes are, what you were happy with.  
The experiences you made in the last life giving you a head start, so you wouldn't make the same mistakes again, wouldn't take anything for granted and really appreciate everything.

From what I experienced, it's nothing like that.  
You're confused, scared, and helpless.

One moment you know you're dying and the next you are shoved of in an infant's body and your mind is screaming at you that it's wrong. So utterly, completely _wrong_.

Now, I'd love to say that I found out quickly and that I accepted it and moved on.  
That I used all the wisdom, as little as it might be, from my past 28 years of live and made the best out of it.  
But that would be a lie.

I didn't.

I was terrified and helpless. Practically all my mind supplied in the first few days was a blurry mess, overwritten by the sheer panic and confusion. I couldn't grasp a clear thought. What made it all worse was that I couldn't remember what had happened. Not my death not anything that had happened in the week before my death.

It came to me later, when I had calmed down enough to actually think again.

Just imagine, the last thing you remember is being at home, thinking about visiting your family the next day, checking your luggage one last time before going to bed and then BAM! Suddenly all you can do is scream your head off, you can't talk, you can't walk, you can't even move your body, all your limps do is twitch pathetically, with no control at all, you can't move your head to look were you are. Surrounded by giants, strangers, who move you around, no matter how much you scream, not fazed the slightest by your incoherent protests.

You don't know where you are, what happened, and who those people are, not one familiar face or even a familiar location.  
Completely cut off. And at some point you start doubting that you are who you believe you are.

No surprise that I cried. A lot.

I was unresponsive for days. Refused to be fed by those strangers, screamed my head of when they changed me, trying to force my weak limbs into moving, defending myself, doing just something whenever somebody touched me.  
It took a while, about a week, for me to realize that I'm not dreaming that this is as real as anything can be.  
Now, don't misunderstand me: figuring out that this was real didn't mean that I knew what was going on.  
I was still very much clueless to all other aspects.  
The only result was that I stopped screaming so much, as it has absolutely no effect on anyone who was ever around me.  
Plus it only made me very tired and I would fall asleep. Which I didn't want to.  
Who would blame me? I was surrounded by giant strangers who could do practically anything with me.  
Not that I could do anything about that, but I still felt better being awake as much as I could.

About a week after I realized this to be real, not some weird dream, I warily accepted that the giants wouldn't hurt me, that they were actually taking care of me. As if I even had a choice.

It calmed me considerably and it was the first time that I finally got a grasp on a few clear thoughts.

I would like to say that it was a brilliant epiphany and that it was the moment that I realized I was reborn and that it was in fact me in my infant body who was small and not the other people being unusually large.  
No. My first clear thought that I remembered was actually something along the line of

'What the fuck is going on!'

Brilliant, I know.

I tried to keep my calm after that, I really did. But I still couldn't help but wail endlessly whenever somebody picked me up. Which wasn't smart, another thing that came to me later.  
Since I couldn't understand what anyone was saying and couldn't observe my surrounding while crunching up my tiny face and crying until my head looked like it would explode.

Honestly, it took another week for me to realize that and it took all my self-control to not start crying whenever the giants came to take care of me. But I managed, somehow.  
After all knowledge is power and if I knew what was going on, I could find a way out of here, right?  
Wrong.

The first time somebody came to me after I made the conviction to listen and observe I could clearly see the relive on the nurse's face when she picked me up. I may have squirmed a bit and made some embarrassing gurgling noises, but I didn't scream, I was observing.  
She heaved a sigh, mumbled something inaudible, fed me and put me back.  
It was frustrating.

A few days past like this, me trying to figure stuff out and not getting anything and the nurses, all having various expression of relive, surprise and in one case suspicion on their faces. I fell into a routine, though not for long.

Three days after, as soon as I had gotten used to this, my routine changed.  
I met my new mother.  
She seemed nice and pretty, but it was a complete overload of information and realization.

I remember being incredibly frustrated because after three days of silently observing and listening closely I hadn't found out much except that I was in a hospital and that all the nurse-giants were relieved that I had stopped screaming so much and that there were others like me in the room.  
The woman, who I learned was my mother, came in together with the suspicious nurse, the one I didn't like because she came in took care of me as quickly as giantly possible and put me back into my bed without even muttering a word. I think she found me creepy.

They were standing in front of me, overshadowing me and I remember fighting down a wave of panic and the feeling of helplessness when I saw an unfamiliar face. The few words they exchanged were too quiet for me to understand, even though I tried. All I could make out was that the woman sounded worried and that the nurse sounded kind of clinical.

It was uncomfortable at first, when the new woman picked me up, carefully supporting my head.  
Right when I was about to start screaming my head off again, the suspicious nurse taking a few steps back when my face started scrunching up, she smiled down at me. And I couldn't.

The woman looked happy to see me, to hold me. It was a strange bubbly feeling; after all, she was the first one to actually smile at me as far as I remembered.

So I kept quiet and listened to the woman's quiet, garbled words which were filled with nothing more but joy and pride.  
Most of the words were too quit to understand for my undeveloped ears.

What finally gave me the big revelation of my situation was unfortunately the cool voice of the suspicious nurse.  
One sentence. Only one sentence it took to make me loose it again.  
"Tsuji-san, I filled out the forms. You can take your daughter home now."

You know that feeling when you realize something bad and the consequences that it might have on you? The silent terror that settles in your gut, makes your head spin and a cold feeling creep up your spine and spread through your whole body like a deadly infection?

It's suffocating.

My whole world was turned upside down and really, the only thing I was thinking back then was that I wouldn't be able to go back. That I wouldn't just wake up at one point and see my mother sitting next to my bed, holding my hand and constantly repeating silent prayers that I would just wake up.

That I wouldn't finally open my eyes, get out of this nightmare, see her sitting there and just say:  
"You wouldn't believe what a fucked up dream I just head", with a smile.  
She wouldn't break out in tears of seeing me awake, of hearing my voice.  
In fact she would never hear my voice again. And I wouldn't hear hers. Or any ones, for that matter.  
I was alone. And with that the feeling settled in, made itself home inside me not planning to leave me for a while.  
As if saying, 'Took you long enough to realize this. Now I'm staying so you won't forget again.

I truly felt like crying, not for attention, just for myself.

I might not have liked it, but I got used to my situation by successfully shoving everything into the darkest corner of my conscious mind and just taking it as it comes.  
Still, being an infant was an annoying and very frightening experience.

You can't do anything. I felt mostly like a doll. I got dressed, fed, changed, bathed had to suffer through giants talking to me with ridiculous voices while they made funny faces and cooed over me, adding to that the feeling of complete helplessness, not being able to talk and tell people off, or do just anything myself. It was torture. But I got used to it.

It's really incredibly what humans are possible to deal with when they are forced into a situation they can't escape, even more so what the human mind is capable of when faced with a situation like this.  
Had I been my usual self, I probably would have thrown a fit over people being so annoying or touching me without my consent.  
Being an infant sounds easy enough but surprisingly I found it mentally challenging.  
Accepting that you needed those people around you to survive, that you need to rely on complete strangers and dealing with the boredom of not being able to do anything at all was difficult.  
I was used to be responsible for myself, since a young age. Not because my family treated me badly or anything, just because we were so many and I wasn't the type to run to mommy for every little thing. It had made me proud to be able to take care of myself. And my pride didn't take it well when every tiny bit of responsibility was ripped away from me.

To top it off, my mind was still buzzing with how this was possible and what had happened between going to bed and waking up in an infant's body.  
There were other problems.  
Like accepting the fact that I had a mother. A new mother. A family.  
On one hand, I was glad. The new woman didn't look like my mother at all. She was younger, way younger then my mother even was when I was born.  
My mom had a round, strong face, tanned from working in the garden, with lots of wrinkles from smiling.  
This woman had freckles instead of wrinkles and her face was small and thin and she had that worried, world wary look that old people often had that didn't match her young appearance.  
But really, she wasn't my mother, and I was glad because I knew that I couldn't handle looking at her every day, for however long, if she did.  
On the other hand, it would make it just much harder to accept her as family, as my mother.´ Sometimes, I still don't think I actually do.

And then there was the fact that apparently my mini version of a brain didn't like the complete overload of knowledge and thoughts and memories that was stored. It was more like sharing the body with an infant mind than just being by myself. My brain was mostly working perfectly fine, could see normally and I had all my memories and knowledge, but sometimes I could feel the urges to cry when my new mother wasn't giving me enough attention or feeling strangely fascinated by her playing peek-a-boo with me.

I suppressed giving in to the infant side, but it was still there and staying in control of my thought process was incredibly difficult.  
Though, the helplessness I felt of not being in control of my body, and the terror I felt about also loosing control of my mind helped a lot and was a great motivator.

Most of my baby alone time I spend daydreaming, the same way I used to do as a teenager when I couldn't fall asleep at night.  
It was the easiest way, just curling up into myself and letting stuff come step by step.  
I may not be proud of it, but it was the only way I could deal with things at that moment in time.

Inevitably, I had figured out that to be reborn I had to have died. I didn't remember it. And I would spend years struggling to accept it and to move on.  
The thought of having lost everything, of never seeing my friends and family again, hearing the again, not being there was just too painful.  
I shoved it away in the darkest corner of my mind. Not healthy, but dealing with it meant accepting, I wasn't ready for that.

Instead, I busied my mind with checking out my surroundings and to some degree watching Yuzuki whenever she was around.  
Which wasn't often.  
She had stayed at home with me for a few weeks after she brought me to her home.  
I grew kind of used to her, she was okay I guess. Young and inexperienced but she did her best.  
Luckily for her I grew slowly accustomed to the routine, I wasn't a loud baby, except for the few gurgling noises I made when trying to get my voice back.  
Well that, and crying whenever I needed a change. That just felt plain disgusting; I could live with swallowing my pride for that.

At some point she started to drop me off at the house of an elderly couple, my grandparents I assumed, left for the day, sometimes a few days, and then picked me up at night again.  
I would have been concerned if she had not looked and sounded so happy every time she came to pick me up.  
It might have also been that I didn't want to care.

Most of the time I stayed with my new grandmother, a soft-spoken woman by the name of Yukita, and what I presumed to be my aunt, a twelve year old girl named Kimiko.  
I regarded them with what I would call indifference. They were there, they took care of my baby needs and I was satisfied with that.  
It didn't stop with that though. Yukita was absolutely ecstatic to have a grandchild and it showed. Whenever she was taking a break from her usual housework she would be at my side chatting away, telling me stories and playing baby games with me.

Around the time Yuzuki started to leave me with my grandparents I noticed the difference in language. I hadn't paid any mind to being able to understand everything before that, being too busy with my own thoughts. Initially I had thought that it was due to being in the same geographical area where I used to live. But when I needed something to occupy my mind, so it would not drift towards my family and past life I noticed the difference.

She was telling my something about my aunt when I noticed that the language she was talking in was Japanese.  
Now while I hadn't had a problem with the language per se, having learned the language before and even spent a year in the country, it was still different and made me groan internally.  
The pronunciation was off and some words sounded completely different. But it was japanese none the less.

This in my current state only meant one thing for me: less effort.  
At some point in the past weeks I had decided that being as normal as I could be was the best thing to do, or well, I tried to convince myself of that.

There were other things I noticed: the interior of the house, the few times I managed to take in my surroundings when Yuzuki brought me over.  
It didn't look anything like I remembered japan to look like.

It should have been a clue, it seriously should have. But I think back then, I refused to think about it because I couldn't take much more.

I like to think that I made normal progress for a baby, despite having an adult mind, because I it was somehow a reassurance that I wasn't the only one in this specific situation. That rebirth was normal and nothing out of the ordinary and to some degree I was hoping that my past memories would fade away and I would forget everything that I was before. The thought made me feel slightly guilty and made the void in my chest twist painfully, but back then I didn't think that I could actually handle keeping my memories of what used to be. I was scared of it, scared of always comparing my two lifes, scared of the empty void that was left from being ripped out of my life, that I wasn't yet ready to accept was there.

I was sure I wouldn't be able to deal with it.

I was 6 month old when I discovered the whole truth about my situation.  
It wasn't anything dramatic. No Kyuubie attack, no enemy Ninja, no suddenly being faced with any of the characters or landmarks I was familiar with.

It was my grandmother being sick that lead to the final realization. And the babysitters my mother employed to take care of me while she was at work and a few loving words my mother said to me when she handed me over to those Babysitters.

"Akina-chan, today you can't stay with Nana.", first I thought how glad I was that she didn't talk to me in an all cutesy voice, like my grandmother did, despite not knowing that I could understand every single word. I gave a quite gurgle, my voice still not under my control.

" Nana is sick, so today a good friend of mine and his team will look after you."  
Team? I tried to look questioning and Yuzuki let out a small laugh.  
"I used to be on a team with him."  
What Team? Sports? Is Yuzuki into sports? I never saw any equipment lying around. Now that I was thinking about it, she did dress rather weird.  
Everybody dressed weird; maybe it was some kind of new fashion trend.

Denial.

"You know," she said while lifting me up after she finished dressing me," I would love to stay myself for once. But Mommy has to go on an important mission."

A knock interrupted her monologue.  
Mission? What the fuck?

My mind was reeling at that moment. She had never talked about what she was doing all day long.  
"So you're staying with Rafu and his new Genin team. "She was crossing the living room of her apartment now, towards the door.

And my mind stumbled across her words. Genin? What in the name of sanity is she talking about?  
My head was spinning and the symbolic void in my chest seemed to roar with laughter at my stupidity and denial.

Suddenly I was faced with three boys, with expressions between frustration and utter boredom and a very, very large and muscly man with a big grin on his face.

Had I been about to cry a few seconds before because of confusion, I was now unable do anything but stare wide eyed and completely silent in shock at the shiny forehead protectors with the swirly symbol on it.

The last thing before the realization finally trickled in and I started screaming again was a brilliant:

'You can't be serious. Fuck.'


	3. Note 1

Hello you sweet little things!

I don't do this very often, but I think after that much time it's justified:  
an update will be coming soon!  
It's been quite some time, but it's my exam week at university and after that almost three beautiful month  
of freedom and time to write.  
I have some brilliant ideas for plots to be integrated into the story and also if you are interested, watch out for  
any new stories. Been playing with quite a few ideas for fanfictions for a few different fandoms, including One Piece, Torchwood, Doctor Who and another Naruto story.

On another note: Seriously, you guys surprised me with all the favourits, following and comments.  
I haven't replied to all messages and comments yet, but I will as soon as I have time again.  
You are wonderfull, brilliant People and it's really nice to know that you like it so far and I'm glad for the advises you're giving me continuously.  
So stay tuned and update is coming sometime next week!  
And wish me luck for my exams :)

Later Lovers,  
Ellie (ghostbuster03)


End file.
